The British, American and French Photobook:
Commitment, Memory, Materiality and the Art Market (1900-2019)

A conference to be held at the Maison Française, Oxford
Thursday 14 to Saturday 16 March 2019

The Maison Française conference committee invites proposals on the social history of the British, American or French photobook from 1900 to the present. Papers will address: commitment or explicit political engagement; memory, commemoration and the writing of history; materiality (whether real or virtual), and how material form affects circulation, handling, critical responses and the social life of the photobook. We invite contributors to analyse these topics with respect to the growth of the market for the photobook as a commodity and an object of bibliophilic attention. Proposals focusing on contemporary productions are particularly welcome.

Recent illustrated anthologies in the vein of The Photobook: A History (Gerry Badger and Martin Parr, 2004, 2006, 2014) have established three things: firstly, the photobook-photographer is an editor and an author, or auteur (in the cinematographic sense, but applied to “directing” the production of a book); secondly, the photobook is an autonomous work of art, and a collectible object of connoisseurship; thirdly, the photobook “art world” now exists and can be studied.

This conference will concern itself with the social history of the photobook, whether photographer-driven, writer-driven, editor-driven, or publisher-driven. For the purposes of this conference, the definition of the photobook will be extended to include all photographically illustrated books, regardless of subject matter or the proportion of text to image, or indeed whether or not the images are “illustrative” in the strict sense of the word.

Three major questions arise concerning the photobook as a medium:
• Firstly, what place is there for literary fiction or imaginative picture-making in photobooks committed to documentary truth-telling or historical accuracy? In a word, how do fact and fiction, objectivity and subjectivity, cohere?
• Secondly, to what extent does the self-fashioning of the photographer in the art market interfere with the narrative meaning of a photobook? What is the influence of the art market on the photobook or on the writing of photobook histories? And how has the art market for photobooks changed since the bibliophilic creations of the early twentieth century?
• Thirdly, unlike individual prints that become unmoored without their captions, and which can be appropriated and re-used against themselves, can a photo-text shore itself up against appropriation? Is it a privileged pedagogical medium? A self-sufficient medium? This leads to a related question: how have certain photobooks changed with time? How have famous or reprinted photobooks been differently interpreted by different audiences? What has been the afterlife of politically committed photobooks? How, and in what circumstances, have certain photobooks contributed to writing or re-writing local memory or “collective memory”, at the time of their publication and over time?

To answer these questions, specialists in the history of photography, book studies and visual studies are invited to dialogue with researchers in such disciplines as sociology, anthropology, critical race theory, queer theory, gender studies, post-colonial studies and comparative literature. Papers may be disciplinary or multidisciplinary.

Papers shall be given in English.
Proposals are due by 15 November 2018.
Send 300-word abstracts (as an email attachment in Microsoft Word format, RTF, or PDF) along with a one-page CV topaul.edwards@cnrs.fr

Roundtable sessions of 60 to 90 minutes may be proposed. They should be pre-organised, and include 3 to 5 panellists. To propose a roundtable, the discussion moderator will send a single 300-word abstract describing the chosen topic, as well as supplying the full details of each panellist, namely their contact information (email and phone number), affiliation and a one-page CV for each. Please be sure to confirm the participation of all panellists before submitting an abstract.
Roundtable proposals are due by 15 November 2018.

Confirmation of acceptance will be sent by 15 January 2019.
One-page/500-word abstracts must be sent by 15 February 2019.

Since 1978, the History and Archives section of the German Photographic Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Photographie, DGPh) recognises scientific research in the history and theory of photography.

The DGPh History of Photography Research Award 2016 will be open for all elements of research into photography’s many aspects. Besides aspects of traditional history and theory of photography, topics will be considered that deal with photography’s social meaning, or the impact that the medium has had on society. The applicant’s work should represent an autonomous, innovative, and original contribution to these areas. The award is particularly aimed at young scholars.

The award is open to researchers from all fields. Applications and manuscripts for the DGPh History of Photography Research Award may be submitted in either English or German. Applications should consist of a published or unpublished manuscript produced during the last two years before the deadline. Project outlines, or yet unfinished manuscripts etc. will not be accepted. Allocation will be the decision of an expert jury. The award is endowed with a total of 3,000 Euro. The jury holds the right to split the prize between two applicants in equal parts. The award will be handed over at a public event organized by the DGPh.

Submission requirements are the following pdf-files:

A complete manuscript as electronic file form

An abstract of the submitted work (approx. 300-500 words)

A curriculum vitae (résumé)

A list of publications.

The final date for submissions is the 30rd of September, 2018. Submissions should be send online under the Application form.

JAR invites submissions from all fields and disciplines in which artistic research may be relevant, including areas that are not usually conceived of as artistic. We welcome submissions from practitioners with or without academic affiliations. JAR’s format for publishing artistic research, the exposition, invites authors to combine text, image, film, and audio material on expandable web pages, challenging the dominance of writing in traditional academic research. Submissions in multiple languages are accepted, if accompanied by an English translation, which will act as master version. Multilingual expositions are also welcome as long as translations are provided.

The Journal for Artistic Research (JAR) is an international, online, Open Access and peer-reviewed journal that disseminates artistic research from all disciplines. JAR invites the ever-increasing number of artistic researchers to develop what for the sciences and humanities are standard academic publication procedures. It serves as a meeting point of diverse practices and methodologies in a field that has become a worldwide movement with many local activities. JAR provides a digital platform where multiple methods, media and articulations may function together to generate insights in artistic research endeavours. It seeks to promote expositions of practice as research. In JAR artistic research is viewed as a developing field where research and art are positioned as mutually influential. Recognising that the field is ever developing and expanding, JAR remains open to continued re-articulations of its publishing criteria.

The JAR Network further facilitates exchange among the artistic research community. This part of the site is an extension of JAR rather than part of the peer reviewed journal. In the Network we publish writing that actively responds to issues in the field, allowing JAR to give focus to developments and make public some of the important discussions that artistic researchers have in their own local contexts.

For submissions information, and advice on whether your research is suitable for JAR, contact the Managing Editor, using the web contact form.

JAR is published by the Society for Artistic Research (SAR), an independent, non-profit association. You can support JAR by becoming an individual or institutional member of SAR. More information can be found here.

ARCHES: How can we use technology to make museums accessible to everyone including people who don’t like technology?

Description of the challenges faced by the Project

ARCHES project is working with people who have differences and difficulties associated with perception, memory, cognition and communication to develop applications, online platform and multisensory technology to enhance museum accessibility. We met weekly at the V&A and Wallace Museums in London and next year will also work with museums in London and next year will also work with museums in Vienna, Madrid and Oviedo. The members of our participatory research groups have the full gamut of access needs and intellectual/sensory impairments. The London Exploration Group have identified a key challenge for ARCHES to be the need to develop creative interpretation. They want to move beyond the limited opportunities provided by current models of access, so they transcend the delivery of information to encapsulate the spirit of an artwork and its space within the museum. They are seeking to transform the technologies so that the interpretation becomes artwork and access is no longer additional but integral to the museum visit.

Brief description of technology

ARCHES will bring together several technologies, including an accessible software platform, a set of applications for handheld devices and on-site multisensory activities. They will be developed in parallel with the exploration sessions organised at the museums so that the feedback from the exploration groups can be incorporated to the final versions. Accessible software platform: Image processing functionalities such a zoom, colour inversion, contrast enhancement, photonegative; integration of digital cultural heritage resources from external sources; search engine to find similar works on the Internet; automatic generation of descriptions based on metadata; social network interaction. Applications for handheld devices: Functionalities such as text-to-speech conversion for artefact descriptions using Augmented Reality; avatar technology supporting those who use forms of sign language; QR codes to obtain complementary information on the artworks adapted to the user’s profile: assisted indoor guidance. ‘Our story’ app to create a story/video from photos and share the experience. Multisensory activities: Touchable reliefs from two-dimensional images like paintings/photos; relief printer inspired by the pin art toy; and a context-sensitive tactile audio guide that provides help in the tactile and autonomous exploration.

What the project is looking to gain from the collaboration and what kind of artist would be suitable

As individuals, our participants have hugely diverse skills, background and experiences, yet collectively we represent the totality of impairment. To respond to this rich and varied situation we must collectively offer stimulation yet solitude and calm, simplicity for some and complexity for others, whilst recognising that no single sense can be relied upon and no single solution will be enough. The Artist we seek must be profoundly excited by working in a multimodal, multisensory and participatory way to engage with our diversity. They need to be able to inspire, share, listen and respond using a wide range of sensory and conceptual approaches. They must work in a tactile way (perhaps seeking to use light and colour, sounds, smells and tastes as they explore both the material of the museum and the technology of the project) recognising the need for ideas to be both provocative, evocative and readily understood.

Resources available to the artist

We offer an artist workspace in Vienna, an office space in Bath with access to a range of technologies, (for example animation and multi-modal media) or office space in Milton Keynes. We can also provide meetings spaces in London and access to technology at our museum bases there. We have technology partners in Oviedo who could provide additional office space and access to a diverse range of software and hardware. As part of our travel costs for the project there would be sums available to facilitate participatory ways of working and transporting participants to enable this. All our partners are close to airports and mainline rail and general transport links.
More info on ARCHES: http://arches-project.eu
More info on how to apply for the residency: http://vertigo.starts.eu/residencies-program/

THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, founded in 1804, holds a distinguished collection of books, manuscripts, photographs, graphic materials, decorative objects, historical artifacts, and works of art.

The Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at the New-York Historical Society is home to more than 350,000 books, three million manuscripts, and distinctive collections of maps, photographs, and prints, as well as ephemera and family papers documenting the history of the United States from a distinctly New York perspective. New-York Historical’s collections are particularly rich in material pertaining to the American Revolution and early Republic, the Civil War, and the Gilded Age. Significant holdings relate to Robert Livingston and the Livingston family, Rufus King, Horatio Gates, Albert Gallatin, Cadwallader Colden, Robert Fulton, Richard Varick, and many other notable individuals. Also well documented within the Library’s collections are major social movements in American history, especially abolitionism, temperance, and social welfare. The Library’s visual archives include some of the earliest photographs of New York, a significant collection of Civil War images, and the archives of major architectural firms of the later 19th century. Among the more than 1.6 million works comprising the Museum’s art collections are all 435 preparatory watercolors for John James Audubon’s Birds of America, a preeminent collection of Hudson River School landscapes; and an exceptional collection of decorative and fine arts spanning four centuries.

The New-York Historical Society offers a rich research environment that promotes an active intellectual community. Fellows are encouraged to explore the collections and take advantage of the full scope of the Library and Museum’s resources and to share their research during their tenure through informal talks and blog posts. Educational outreach and public programs further support New-York Historical’s intellectual mission to explore the richly layered political, cultural, and social history of New York and the nation, as well as the making and the meaning of history.

The New-York Historical Society offers several long- and short-term fellowships during the academic year. Designed to encourage and promote the use of the institution’s diverse collections of primary and secondary sources, the fellowships are open to scholars at various times during their academic careers.

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Women’s History
Hired for a two-year term, one postdoctoral fellow will work as a public historian and intellectual coordinator for the New-York Historical Society’s Center for Women’s History. The ideal candidate will have a strong scholarly interest in women’s history and some experience in public history. The fellow will participate in developing programming and be deputized to operate certain projects independently. Applicants for the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship must have the PhD in hand by the time of appointment. The postdoctoral fellow will be in residence as a full-time staff member with a stipend of $50,000 per year with full benefits. This fellowship lasts from September 1, 2017 until August 30, 2019.

Bernard and Irene Schwartz Fellowships
Offered jointly with the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School, two Bernard and Irene Schwartz Fellowships are open to scholars who will have completed their PhD in history or American studies before the end of the 2016-2017 academic year. Fellows will teach one course per semester at Eugene Lang College in addition to conducting focused research in residence at the New-York Historical Society. These fellows carry a stipend of $60,000, plus benefits. The fellowship lasts from September 1, 2017 until June 29, 2018.

Patricia and John Klingenstein Short-Term Fellowships
Two or more Patricia and John Klingenstein Short-Term Fellowships will be awarded to scholars at any academic level. Fellows will conduct research in the New-York Historical Society’s library collections for two to four weeks at a time, and will receive a stipend of $1,500 to $2,000. These fellowships last from September 1, 2017 until June 29, 2018.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Predoctoral Fellowships in Women’s History
The two recipients of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in Women’s History should have a strong interest in the fields of women’s history and public history. They must be currently enrolled students in good standing in a relevant PhD program in the humanities. The Predoctoral Fellows will be in residence part time at the New-York Historical Society for one academic year, between September 1, 2017 and June 29, 2018, with a stipend of $15,000 per year. This position is not full time and will not receive full benefits.

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
One fellowship for the length of a single academic year is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities for research at the New-York Historical Society. The fellowship is available to individuals who have completed their formal professional training and have a strong record of accomplishment within their field. There is no restriction relating to age or academic status of applicants. Foreign nationals are eligible to apply if they have lived in the United States for at least three years immediately preceding the application deadline. The ten-month residency will carry a stipend of $42,000, plus benefits. This fellowship lasts from September 1, 2017 until June 29, 2018.

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowships
Two Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowships will be awarded to candidates who have earned their PhD in the last three to five years. Research projects may include the conversion of a dissertation into a publishable manuscript or the initiation of new research based on the collections and resources of the New-York Historical Society. This ten-month residency will carry a stipend of $60,000, plus benefits. The fellowship lasts from September 1, 2017 until June 29, 2018.

Since 1978, the History and Archives section of the German Photographic Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie, DGPh) recognises scientific research in the history and theory of photography.

The DGPh History of Photography Research Award 2016 will be open for all elements of research into photography’s many aspects. Besides aspects of traditional history and theory of photography, topics will be considered that deal with photography’s social meaning, or the impact that the medium has had on society. The applicant’s work should represent an autonomous, innovative, and original contribution to these areas. The award is open to researchers from all fields.

Applications and manuscripts for the DGPh History of Photography Research Award may be submitted in either English or German. Applications should consist of a published or unpublished manuscript produced during the last two years before the deadline. Project outlines, or yet unfinished manuscripts etc. will not be accepted.

Allocation will be the decision of an expert jury. The jury will publish its reasons to reward the winning entry. The jury consists of the chairpersons of the History and Archives section of the DGPh, the previous prize winner plus one or a group of invited councellor(s).

The award is endowed with a total of 3,000 Euro. The jury holds the right to split the prize between two applicants in equal parts. The award will be handed over at a public event organized by the DGPh.

Submission requirements are the following pdf-files:

– A complete manuscript as electronic file form
– An abstract of the submitted work (approx. 300-500 words)
– A curriculum vitae (résumé)
– A list of publications.

The call is free of charge. Deadline for the submission of applications is July 3, 2016, midnight, Madrid, CEST timezone.

The successful candidate is expected to research and write around the local art scene of Sapporo, to learn about Japan and to establish networks and dialogues between local and international artists.

The call is open for curators who work with all kinds of disciplines within the context of contemporary visual and fine arts. There is no age limit. Applicants should neither hold Japanese nationality nor reside in Japan, and should be able to exercise a degree of autonomy and self-reliance.

The call seeks especially for professionals who work with a high level of excellence, but do not yet have a consolidated international career, as one of the primary goals of Curators’ Network is to promote art-professionals who are still not well known in a larger international context.

Applicants should have at least a moderate level of spoken English or Japanese, and should feel comfortable engaging in discussions in one of these two languages.

Applying curators should thoroughly research about S-AIR and Curators’ Network and submit a proposal demonstrating in which line(s) they would like to research whilst in Sapporo.

Dates, deadlines

Deadline: Applications should be submitted online NOT LATER THAN Sunday July 3, 2016 at Midnight [Madrid, CEST].

Selection: The resident will be chosen on the basis of the submitted applications. A shortlist will be made by a jury of the management board of Curators’ Network. The final selection will be made by the selection committee at S-AIR.

Notification: The successful candidate will be notified byWednesday, July 13, 2016.

Residency: Up to 30 days between August 9 and September 13, 2016. The applicants can propose their preferred time frame, the minimum stay is 20 days. The final dates for arrival and departure to and from Japan to be agreed between S-AIR and the resident.